Brent Edwards' thoughts on innovation in business and science

November 20, 2007

Coach Carr has resigned as head coach of the University of Michigan’s football team. He leaves as the fifth most winningest coach of all time in the Big Ten, having brought a national championship to Michigan for the first time in half a century. Yet he leaves at the urging of most Michigan football fans because he failed in one non-negotiable requirement of his job. I am a Michigan fan, my cats are named Maizey and Blue, and I appreciate and value what Carr has done for this program. Yet I agree that Coach Carr needed to go.

And this is a key message to be heard by all highly skilled and seemingly successful employees everywhere, from Silicon Valley to around the world. Take notice of Coach Carr.

I am sad to see Coach Carr go, I really am. He achieved greatness for Michigan over his 13–year tenure. Similar success at other universities would have ensured his iconic status and everlasting love among those fans and alumni. But Carr failed to make Michigan competitive against Ohio State University, and at the University of Michigan that is a breach of the unstated non-negotiable requirement to be head coach. Even though Carr has a career record of 6–7 against OSU, his record against OSU’s current coach is a mere 1–6. Not good enough.

Reading the details above of Coach Carr’s extraordinary success at Michigan, the unknowing reader may not understand why his departure was inevitable. His departure may be even more perplexing given the value that Carr brought to his players. By all accounts, Carr is one of the most decent coaches in Division I football. Coach Carr has been a players’ coach, looking out for the well-being of each student player in his team, providing life-lessons that will help them well beyond the last time that they touch a football, and as a result engendering their everlasting loyalty towards Carr. Players truly love him.

But failing on one key requirement has forced Carr’s departure from Michigan.

And this is a key message to every motivated, achievement-oriented worker in the US. Know the fundamental requirements of your job. If you don’t know, ask. Because if you don’t meet those requirements—that one key “achieve this or else,” possibly unspoken component—then you will be lucky to survive no matter how successful you are in all the other aspects of your job. Just ask Coach Carr.

SF Mayor Gavin Newsom, whom I recently posted about, sent this message loud and clear to senior city officials: two months ago, he told them to submit letters of resignation. All 400 of them. Now, most if not all of those letters he intended to reject. So why would he ask them to submit a resignation letter if he didn’t plan on accepting it? I believe Newsom wanted to send the exact same message that I’ve been talking about: that no matter how well they have played the political system and become comfortable in their job, San Francisco officials have a non-negotiable requirement to meet the needs of the citizens of San Francisco. Fail to meet those needs and your job is at risk.

Such messages can be valuable wake-up calls to anyone—the mere knowledge of their existence can be job-saving. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the in-your-face warnings received by those under Newsom, or have the obvious demands of their job laid bare like they are to every Michigan football coach. Which is why every employee, particularly those who have achieved success in their job, needs to understand what their job’s non-negotiable requirements really are, and whether their successes satisfy those key requirements or are simply nice-to-haves.

Coach Carr knew what his key requirements for success were, but unfortunately in sports one’s success does not lie in one’s own hands. Carr was unable to succeed in the most important demand that his job required because of many factors out of his control. And for this failure I am very sad. Carr is a great coach and deserves a better retirement than he is getting. His memory will be blemished in a way that many will call unfair. But I also understand that there are non-negotiable requirements that must be met by any coach of Michigan Football. And under Coach Carr, those requirements were not met.

So, with a lump in my throat, that’s the end of story for Lloyd Carr, a man whose career almost anyone would envy and admire. Do envy and do admire.

As always, Mitch Albom has honorable and tear-worthy words by which to remember Coach Carr. For what it’s worth, I still occasionally re-read Albom’s near-poetic words written upon Bo Schembechler's death. Bo spoke about the honorable Michigan tradition when he first took the Michigan head coach job. Both Bo and Carr have indelible added to that tradition.

A book co-authored by John U. Bacon on the leadership wisdom of Bo has just been released called Bo’s Lasting Lessons. Books on the wisdom of sports legends are usually a dime-a-dozen (as are books on the wisdom of famous CEOs), but if you believe that Bo’s coaching skills and knowledge can provide insight towards leadership in business—a point that I have made in my previous posts—then this book could be a worthwhile book to read.

Just to be clear, I don’t think that a successful sports coach can automatically be successful as a business leader, but I believe that they both share many similar qualities relating to running and inspiring a group of high-level achievers. Executives ignore the lessons from successful leaders at their peril, regardless of the arena in which those leaders performed. (Of course, this book is also a must for any Bo or Michigan fan, and it will probably help ease the pain of the beginning of the current football season and the end of the previous one.)

The following is an excerpt from the book, part of a larger excerpt posted on the Michigan Today website. It’s difficult to read Bo’s thoughts on respecting the institution that one inherits and not think about the mistakes made by Carly Fiorina at HP and other dominant CEOs who misunderstood the institution that they took over, or other CEOs and acquiring companies who ran roughshod over the history and culture of companies that they had acquired. Bo understood that corporate culture begins at the top, and he understood the need to respect the value of the team members that one works with. Echoes of his “the team, the team, the team” benediction resonates throughout this passage:

It's one thing, when you start in a new position, to throw a bucket of cold water on your people to let them know things are going to be different around here from now on. That's just smart.

But it's something completely different to do the same thing to the institution you're taking over. That's just stupid!

Let me explain. One of the most common mistakes new leaders make—and I just can't for the life of me understand this one—is to ignore the history of the organization they just took over, or even to disrespect it. That, to me, is the mark of a weak leader—and one who's probably not going to last very long.

Let me be as clear as I can be about this: When you become the leader, do not start your reign by dismantling or ignoring the contributions of those who came before. The history of your organization is one of your greatest strengths, and if you're new to the organization, it's your job to learn it, to respect it and to teach it to the people coming up in your company.

Sure, it's easy to appreciate Michigan's football history—the best, I'd say, in college football. But even if I had gone to Wisconsin, they have a good history, too. Ditto North Carolina. In fact, anywhere I might have gone had to have some history, or it wouldn't still exist! And that goes for any organization you might join, too…

I made a lot of mistakes, but one thing I got right, after we started having some success, was never once claiming that I alone had put that team together—because I hadn't. And at no time did I ignore the guys who played here before I arrived, either. It was their tradition, not mine, that I was now in charge of, and I was going to show them I respected what they'd built here. That's why a lot of those guys are my friends today, great guys like Bob Timberlake and Ron Johnson, who kept Michigan tradition alive before I ever showed up.

Remember this: WHEN YOU ARE THE LEADER, YOU ARE THE ORGANIZATION. You are the company, the school, the team. You are it. Now if you want to act like some kind of jerk where guys who worked for the program and led the program and sacrificed for the program are not welcome to come back—well, you're not going to have much of a program. And you certainly won't have a family. But if you respect your history, you'll get a lot more in return.

When I coached at Ohio State and even at Miami, we had really good facilities. When I got here, I was shocked. Our locker room was on the second floor of Yost Field House. We sat in rusty, folding chairs and hung our clothes on nails hammered into a two-by-four bolted into the wall. Those were our "lockers"!

My coaches started complaining. "What the hell is this?" they said. "We had better stuff at Miami."

I cut that off right away. "No, we didn't," I said. "See this chair? Fielding Yost sat in this chair. See this nail? Fielding Yost hung his hat on this nail. And you're telling me we had better stuff at Miami? No, men, we didn't. We have tradition here, Michigan tradition, and that's something no one else has!"

And for those who really want to know what it means to respect the history that one inherits:

After we knocked off the unbeatable Buckeyes in 1969, it was my duty to give away the game ball. I had a lot of good choices. There was Garvie Craw, who ran for two touchdowns. There was Barry Pierson, our senior defensive back, who grabbed three interceptions that day, ran back a punt to the Ohio State three-yard line, and turned in one of the single greatest performances I've ever seen.

But once everyone quieted down, I asked Bump Elliott [the coach immediately prior to Bo] to come up, and handed the game ball to him. Everyone got choked up, including Bump. Some guys were out and out crying—and I don't remember when I felt better about anything I've done in my entire life.

How many people who experience a CEO change or corporate acquisition are presented with that kind of respect for their company’s history and accumulated culture? And how many would have valued their newfound leadership so much more had they seen the kind of tribute made to the past that Bo made?

November 19, 2006

I’ve posted in the past about inspiring speeches, specifically the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Shakepeare’s Henry V. Prominent venture capitalist Brooke Byers once played a video clip of this speech at an entrepreneur conference as an example of what leadership at a startup should be like. It’s always been a favorite speech of mine, and I suggested in my previous post that any entrepreneur or CEO should be able to inspire their employees with a speech of similar sentiment. I’d like to suggest another speech in this post.

King Henry inspired his troops to fight on St. Crispin’s Day, against tremendous odds, with inspiring words of pride and promises of immortality:

For he to-day that sheds his blood with meShall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,This day shall gentle his condition;And gentlemen in England now-a-bedShall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Real life is rarely as dramatic and inspiring as theatre, but the speech below by the late Bo Schembechler to the Michigan football team is as inspiring as King Henry’s, if not so eloquent. Rather than emphasizing greatness, honor and historical importance as King Henry does, Bo emphasizes teamship. In 77 seconds, he uses the word “team” 15 times. I suggest that this speech be added to those that any entrepreneur and CEO should be able to give to inspire their employees—it incites a spirit that anyone should want within their company, particularly within a startup.

We want the Big 10 championship, and we’re gonna win it as a team. They can throw out all those great backs and great quarterbacks and great defensive players throughout the country and in this conference. But there’s gonna be one team that’s gonna play solely as a team. No man is more important than the team, no coach is more important than the team. The team, the team, THE TEAM. And if we think that way, all of us, everything that you do you take into consideration, “what effect does it have on my team.” Because you can go into professional football, you can go anywhere you want to play, after you leave here, you will never play for a team again. You’ll play for a contract, you’ll play for this, you’ll play for that, you’ll play for everything except a team. Think what a great thing it is to be a part of something that is “The Team.” We’re gonna win it. We’re gonna win the championship again, because we’re gonna play as a team. Better than anybody else in this conference, we’re gonna play together as a team. We’re gonna believe in each other, we’re not gonna criticize each other, we’re not gonna talk about each other, we’re gonna encourage each other. And when we play as a team, when the whole season is over, you and I know it’s going to be Michigan again. Michigan.

November 18, 2006

To most people in the country, I suspect, the only impact of this statement is an impression of the passing of another sports name, perhaps sports legend, who will eventually be replaced in the public’s eye with the next big-name coach at a big-name university.

Bo was more than that.

Bo represented the spirit of a school, if not a whole state, in his embodiment of integrity, determination, team-orientation. Bo was the face of what many Michigan students hoped to one day achieve: overwhelming success without compromise, determination to succeed while maintaining absolute standards of conduct. Bo was determined in what defined success—a Big 10 championship—and in what was necessary to be successful—sacrifice for the success of the team.

Bo wasn’t just a faceless coach who answered questions with pre-canned statements that we’ve heard thousands of times.The press loved him because he was as consistently honest with them as he was with anyone whom he met. To many who weren’t used to hearing honest thoughts from a player or coach, Bo seemed like an oddball. To those who actually listened to what Bo had to say, he was inspiring.

A close friend of mine, a professor who only ever observed Bo from thousands of miles away, liked to make fun of Bo by mangling his surname and mocking his sometimes over-the-top press conferences. Similarly, academicians in general tend to dismiss sports and sports personalities as being trivial and insignificant. A professor at Michigan liked to recount how a dean at Michigan once told him that the worst thing that ever happened to the University of Michigan was that it had a great football team because that took focus away from the school’s excellence in academics (Michigan often vies academically with Berkeley for top state univerisity honors).

What all of these people don’t recognize is the importance of characteristics embodied by people like Bo. There’s a reason that sports metaphors are often applied to other fields of endeavor—they embody behavior and characteristics that are valuable in many areas outside of the sports arena. Are the great achievers in Silicon Valley more similar to towering sports coaches or to brilliant lone scientists? Are Steve Jobs, Bill Gates (okay, not Silicon Valley), Andy Grove, Larry Ellison better associated with the successful engineering professors or with successful coachs?

Bo was passionate about his job and inspired others to be passionate as well. So do the great entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Many Michigan alum, who observed Bo’s determination with uncompromising standards, unconsciously try to embody Bo’s values in their lives today, no matter what profession they are in. Great leaders embody those same characteristics that were so abundant in Bo, although most leaders rarely experience the same public scrutiny, pressure and expectations.

To those who were at Michigan during Bo’s tenure, his passing seems like a weakening of life’s foundation—one can’t imagine Michigan and Bo not co-existing. More importantly, the ideals that he represented have lost a steadfast representative. I have to admit, after today, the phrase “Go Blue” for me won’t carry as much weight as it used to.

For those who would like to read better accounts of Bo Schembechler's relevance, the following capture things nicely:

I am the Vice President for Research at Starkey Labs, the largest hearing device company in the US. I also run a center in Berkeley, CA where we conduct research on hearing, cognition, speech and innovative hearing aid technologies, and am a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley.